First Aid
by kledynk
Summary: Seimei gets injured in a battle.
There's a blow as if the air suddenly increased in density and a shriek can be heard. He sees a flash, a painful pressure in his head dragging him down to his knees. Doubled in half, staring into the dirt he takes a moment to regain control over his body. Struggling to get up he chances a look at his sacrifice, and freezes. Seimei is standing over him, his hand covering his face. As Seimei slowly takes his hand away, Soubi can see that his palm is covered in red, the same red that the side of his face is covered with. Seimei moves his hand as if in disbelief admiring the sheen of his own blood in the bleak autumn light. He turns his head to look at Soubi, the first signs of fury in the nervous twitch of his tail and the polite smile that could qualify as a perfectly civil expression if not for the bloody mess of his face.

He bows his head and looks down at the ground, white noise in his ears intensifying. Weakened as he is from the fight, he braces himself for the blow. It doesn't come. He hears a startled cry cut the air. He looks up in the direction of the sound just in time to see his sacrifice lurch at the girl on the ground and give what seemed to be a pretty vicious kick drawing a bloodcurdling shriek from her sacrifice. Seimei shouts something, the girl tries to attack him, Seimei grabs her by her hair, their voices so shrill they become incomprehensible.

Soubi gets up slowly, struggling to find his balance. His hands tremble slightly as he brings them up to light a cigarette. He can't take a proper drag, his lungs giving out as if he'd just run a marathon, so he just lets the smoke escape his mouth, resting his back against a wall as he tunes out the angry shouts and wails with his eyes closed, waiting.

It's a shame, he thinks. The girls fought by the book. Their attacks were aimed at incapacitating not maiming. He has had it worse with his opponents. What a blunder.

Seimei gets up from the ground. Seeing him approach, Soubi momentarily tenses up, but then deflates when instead of coming up to him, Seimei goes past him. Seimei takes several more steps, then stops abruptly as if he suddenly remembered, turns around, the blood from his wound smeared all over his cheek and jaw now.

"Are you coming or do I need to send out a written invitation?" his voice low.

Soubi follows him to the car. Once in the car, first thing Seimei does is wipe his face in the rear mirror. He grabs the first aid kit and swearing under his breath, goes through its contents, which include an empty packet of band aids, uncoiled bandage, safety pins and a rubber glove.

Soubi watches him struggle desperately to make use of the contents of the kit.

"May I?" he interrupts him as he takes out a leather case from the inside pocked of his coat, opens it and and shows it to Seimei.

"You can keep your maxi pads, thanks." he says with a glance at its contents sounding agitated. Soubi clears his throat looking at the blood pooling in the freshly wiped cut and decides to go on concentrating on his choice of words.

"It could be difficult to dress this kind of wound with the use of a bandage. It's necessary to stop the bleeding first." he unfolds the case, and produces a cotton wad and some band aids. He hands them to Seimei, who just sits motionless staring blankly at Soubi's lap. Soubi follows his eyes to see what caught his attention.

"Oh, this?" he picks up the syringe "It's great for taking measurements." he says tapping his finger on the 10 ml scale on the side of the tube. Seimei closes his eyes and turns away.

Soubi checks his coat pocket and takes out a small bottle of peroxide.

"I would also need to disinfect_"

"Just make it quick!" Seimei cuts him off with a panicked edge to his voice

Soubi soaks the wad with peroxide and takes a closer look at the injury. The cut is right under his eye, running along the cheekbone and stopping dangerously close to the lower eyelid. It's not a deep cut. He brings the wad up to Seimei's face. Seimei closes his eyes, his ears laid back trembling slightly in anticipation of pain.

"I swear, if something had happened, I would have gouged your eyes out." Seimei says, his voice uneven as if he had been keeping his breath.

He's very close, so close he can clearly make out the fresh blood on the tip of Seimei's eyelashes. Prolonging the moment he allows himself to look at Seimei in the way that under any other circumstances wouldn't be possible. He gently brings up the cotton wad to the injury and watching it slowly turn red he smiles "I know."


End file.
